And I rent the wild harp in my madness,
From his ashen brows furrowed the hair;
Soft wafted dark curls from pale temples—
They rustled with death—and the sadness
Of his face so hopelessly fair!
How I wailed to the stars of the heaven
How they scoffed at and answered my grief
In letters of flame, "Unforgiven!
Thou deathless, whose voice is a thief,
Forever and ever grief!"
XV
So I wept on the instrument broken,
The instrument sweet of his death,
The dagger that stabbed not to kill him,
The dagger of song which had spoken,
And ravished away his life's breath.
So I wept, and my curls thick and golden
Stormed entangled and showered 'mid his;
My arms around him were enfolden,
My lips clave to his with a kiss,
With the life and the love of a kiss.
WHAT YOU WILL.
I
When the season was dry and the sun was hot
And the hornet sucked gaunt on the apricot,
And the ripe peach dropped to its seed a-rot,
With a lean red wasp that stung and clung;
When the hollyhocks, ranked in the garden-plot,
More seed-pods had than blossoms, I wot,
A weariness weighed on the tongue,
That the drought of the season begot.
II
When the black grape bulged with the juice that burst
Through its thick blue skin that was cracked with thirst,
And the round gold pippins, the summer had nursed,
In the yellowing leaves o' the orchards hung;
When the reapers, their lips with whistling pursed,
To their sun-tanned brows in the corn were immersed,
A lightness came over the tongue,
And one sung as much as one durst.